Carried Away
THE DITCHFLOWERS
Sunshine Drenchy
If you've ever thought of local rock artists as akin to a JV team, The Ditchflowers should disabuse you of that notion in short order. Carried Away is a first-class pop-rock record by any standard, one that deserves a wider audience than the small cult of local-music enthusiasts.
Fans of melodic guitar-pop in the mold of such benchmarks as The Beatles, Kinks, Bowie, Todd Rundgren, XTC et al should make an immediate and concerted effort to obtain, or at least sample, this album.
After reading the rest of this review, of course.
The band's creative core consists of veteran artists Brian Merrill and Ed Woltil, two of the Bay area's preeminent popsmiths whose talents so complement each other that Carried Away may well be the best work either has done.
Woltil, at best an occasional presence on local stages, penned 10 of the songs, with Merrill cowriting the other two. Like mid- and late-period Beatles albums, Carried Away cuts a fairly broad stylistic swath. While guitar-driven power-pop might be the touchstone here, the duo stretches into the loping country-blues of "Walkin' Back" and the sweet, timeless pop of "Boys" and "Aunt Marie," which conjure the spirit of "When I'm Sixty-Four."
Carried Away is also an intelligent album. Woltil deals with issues of aging, family life, spiritual struggles and adult identity with a kind of casual erudition that's not meant to impress but communicate real feelings.
On the hushed bridge to the exquisite jangle-pop opener "My Next Life," co-writer Merrill sings, "Just sitting calculating up the price I pay for/ Watching my tomorrows fade to yesterdays" — but ultimately the tune is about renewal. On the yearning ballad "My New Skin," the disc's most affecting track, Woltil muses, "Christian liberal, 2.3 kids/ Alter ego on the skids," and goes on to probe the meaning and doubt involved in being a thinking Christian in a raw world.
Although Woltil did most of the writing, he and Merrill split lead vocal chores, complementing each other beautifully. They're essentially bookends, although Merrill sings with a kind of flowing ease while Woltil brings a bit more strain and intensity. As you might expect, their background harmonies are sublime — and often quite ornate, as in the tricky, stacked vocals on "Home Away From Home."
That song includes another welcome element: an old-timey piano solo that adds a blush of added exhilaration. The album — coproduced by Merrill and Woltil, and recorded at Merrill's home studio in St. Pete — brims with these little sonic flourishes: slinky organ beds, a bit of electric piano, the wheeze of a bass harmonica, never as showy devices, but as a means to better serve the song.
I could write a lot more, but now's the time for you to check out The Ditchflowers for yourself. Go to http://ditchflowers.com/">ditchflowers.com;. 4 stars —Eric Snider
Soundtrack: Black Snake Moan
VARIOUS ARTISTS
New West
Mississippi blues great Bukka White promised "world boogie" back in the 1930s. He's been dead for three decades, but his prophecy might just be fulfilled if the new Craig Brewer flick Black Snake Moan pulls an Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? when it hits theaters later this month. Samuel Jackson plays a Delta blues man named Lazarus, in a story reportedly based on the life of badass R.L. Burnside. The soundtrack is a solid primer for folks unaware of the dark, single-chord, shake-your-ass drones originated by north Mississippi music men such as White and modernized by next-generation roughnecks Burnside and his old pal Junior Kimbrough, who is conspicuously absent from the disc. Jackson over-sings and nearly destroys Burnside's "Alice Mae," but it's a hoot to hear the thespian drop his trademark F-bombs during a rowdy interpretation of the old murder report "Stack-O-Lee." The North Mississippi All-Stars contribute to the soundtrack alongside acolytes such as Ohio's The Black Keys. But it's a shame Mississippi juke-joint heroes such as Kimbrough and John Lee Hooker — or current torchbearer Jimbo Mathus — didn't make the final cut. 3 stars —Wade Tatangelo
Meet the Smithereens!
THE SMITHEREENS
Koch
When four lifelong Beatles devotees who happen to be part of a seasoned power-pop band decide to recreate, note for note, the Fab Four's 1964 American debut LP, it can't be a bad thing. It's not necessarily great, either. The Jersey-based Smithereens don't exactly make these songs their own, but they do add enough nuance so that the renditions sound fresh. Singer Pat DiNizio's voice — rounder, huskier, more adult — gives the melodies a darker hue, and the background harmonies lean more toward tartness than the wide-eyed woo-oohs of the original versions. The news here is how well these songs hold up. History has been less effusive about the early Beatles material than the post-Rubber Soul stuff, so Meet the Smithereens! is a vivid reminder of how "It Won't Be Long" is a banging rock tune, or "This Boy" has a hook to make you cry, or the lesser-known closer "Not a Second Time" easily holds its own with the fabled opener "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The Smithereens put a lot of love into this project, and that's infectious. 3 stars —ES
Charles Tolliver Big Band with Love
CHARLES TOLLIVER
Blue Note
Thirty years ago, Charles Tolliver was a promising young trumpet star in the making. He started his own label, Strata East, and when it went under, his profile receded significantly. This big band outing finds him on the Cadillac of jazz labels, Blues Note, but to seemingly no good effect. Big Band with Love is banal, brassy and poorly executed. Aside from the always worthwhile solos of pianist Stanley Cowell and tenor saxophonist Billy Harper, it could have been recorded by any college big band. Did anyone even bother to give drummer Victor Lewis the charts? In an already glutted jazz market, Big Band with Love is decidedly superfluous. 2 stars —Charles Farrell
This article appears in Feb 7-13, 2007.